1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a compressed content file auto-synchronization method, apparatus, and system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method, apparatus, and system for synchronizing a compressed content file automatically in such a way of tracing the modification history of source files of the compressed content file and synchronizing the modified source files selectively.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advance of communication technologies, portable devices such as smart phones and tablet PCs are widespread. Moreover, the portable devices are integrating various functions as well as the basic voice call and texting functions and are being diversified from the viewpoints of size, design, resolution, and user interfaces.
Recent portable devices are designed to support a cloud service for sharing contents. The cloud service allows the users to upload and download user contents such as movies, photos, music files, and documents to and from a server. The user is capable of storing the user contents safely in a cloud server, i.e., an external server, through the cloud service.
In order to mitigate a user's inconvenience when using a portable device, recent portable devices support a synchronization service. In the case of a synchronization method of the related art which performs synchronization on a compressed content file containing multiple files (e.g., open documents such as doc and hwp files), the compressed content file in itself is synchronized.
However, such a method has a drawback in that, even when the compressed content file has only been modified slightly, the entire compressed content file must be synchronized. For example, if a single image file or a text is modified in the compressed content file, synchronization must be performed on the entire compressed content file, which is large in volume. This synchronization of the entire compressed content file consumes a large amount of network resources, resulting in extra billing to the server operator and end user.
Furthermore, the method of the related art does not log the modification and thus, if the compressed content file is edited periodically and frequently, has to perform synchronization on the compressed content file frequently. That is, the synchronization method of the related art has to perform synchronization on the whole compressed content file rather than only the modified part whenever the file is modified even slightly, resulting in the unnecessary use of battery power and excessive network resource consumption.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved apparatus and method that is capable of synchronizing a compressed content file in such a way of generating information on the source files constituting the compressed file, tracing the modifications of the source files based on the source file information, and synchronizing the modified source files.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present invention.